Eva's Reading Meme

Hey, Eva made a meme (with a bunch of magical fairies granting me cool wishes), and who can resist fun bookish wishes?

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

War and Peace. Everybody's talking about their sparkly new translations and I have a perfectly acceptable old translation lying around, and I really, really want to....but it's so...so...huge. I'm afraid I won't be able to stick with it for wanting to read the 10 other books I could have read while I was reading it that I never start it all. *sigh*

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

I don't know what sort of a event I'd like, but I think I'd have Samwise Gamgee from the Lord of the Rings - seems to me like he'd have lots of stories to tell and fun way of telling them. Annnnd...Alice from After You'd Gone (pre-tragedy) because she seems like such a free spirit and also a big bookworm. Annnnd Parsifal from Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant because the book tells his story after his death, though he makes several appearances in dreams, from sketchy details meted out by his assistant, and I want to know his whole story! And now that I think about it, I think we should just all go out for drinks and tell stories because in my experience that's what you do when you go out for drinks or stay in for drinks or do anything with drinks. *shrugs*

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?

Argh...Of Human Bondage. The one and only book that I merely "pretended" to have finished for my senior year AP English class. I think it was the first required reading that I deliberately didn't finish as opposed to passive-aggresively "ran out of time" to read. *whistles*

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?

Hmmmm....this is a toughie. I guess maybe Orwell's Homage to Catalonia for class toward the end of the semester in my junior year of college. I think the whole class was just pretending. It was that time of year when you're so busy writing papers and all sorts of junk like that, so doing reading for class falls to the bottom of the priority list. I still want to read it sometime, but I sure hadn't read it when we "discussed" it!

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?

I can't recall ever doing this, actually.

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP)

I guess if my goal were just to get said VIP to read any book just to see that well, reading is fun and you should do it, I'd have to say Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. My dad's not a huge reader, but he read this and raves about it irritatingly much. Oddly enough, *I* haven't read it. But intend to.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

Russian. There's a hugely amazing body of work that I've hardly scratched the surface of, and to do it with no translation needed - even better!

A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

I am not much of a re-reader, but if I had to choose one, I'd say A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I remember my mom read it to me when I was a kid, and it's always a good way to get into the right sort of Christmas spirit around the holidays.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?

This is also a hard one, as I still feel like a baby book blogger. As a part of bookish communities in general, I've acquired a healthy interest in sci-fi/fantasy type books that I've never had before. And I guess, in general, through blogging, I've found that authors are rather more accessible than I expected them to be. Turns out they are combing the internet, too, and happen to actually make contact with even baby book bloggers like me, on occasion, which is a pretty neat experience, especially when you aren't expecting it! It's nice to see "normal" people just out there writing awesome books and wanting you to read them and enjoy them and willing to communicate with the average joe/jane to that end instead of just being some pillar of literary awesomeness hovering out in the ether somewhere.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.

I've got a huge weakness for trade paperbacks. They feel nice when held in the hand, they're pretty, and they travel well. So, all trade paperbacks, probably! Books from my wish list would magically appear. And if this is reaaaaally a dream library - every book would fit into my house onto shelves where they can be viewed - regardless of how many or how few books are a part of the collection. I hate a book in box, and I hate double-stacked shelves, but alas these things often happen to my unfortunate book collection. So in my ideal library, some magical enchantment would allow everything to be on glorious display!

And now, let’s say everyone has to tag four people (more than that becomes a hassle, imho) I tag…

CJ
Literary Feline
Jill
KookieJar

Of course, only if it pleases you to do so! No pressure! =)

Tweet